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A cybersecurity incident has been determined to be the cause of a recent outage in Lambton County’s messaging and IT systems.
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The Paul Morden Lambton County Council administration building in Wyoming is shown in this file photo. Photo by photo file / The Observer Content of the article
A cybersecurity incident caused a recent outage in Lambton County’s messaging and information technology systems, city officials said.
The county confirmed in a press release Tuesday the cause of an incident that began on May 28 and impacted the city’s computer systems.
The county has no reason to believe at this time that any information, including personal information, has been affected by the incident, according to the county statement.
Stéphane Thiffeault, director general of corporate services for the county, said he was unable to comment further on the nature of the incident.
When asked if this was a case of ransomware, Thiffeault again replied that he was unable to comment.
The issue is being examined both internally and by external forces, he said.
After the incident began, the county IT team immediately took a number of Lambtons systems offline and began an investigation. Experts helped bring the systems back online securely and participated in the investigation, the county said.
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County officials said the relevant authorities had been made aware of the cybersecurity incident.
I would have liked to know who was responsible for what happened, but at the moment, unfortunately, I really have no comment on it, said Thiffeault.
He said there had been some operational issues during the incident, but added that he was handling the situation and moving forward.
Emails to county departments, as well as some software applications, were disrupted during the incident, but messaging service was largely restored on June 1, the county said.
The IT team and experts are working around the clock to ensure fast and secure recovery of all systems, the press release said.
Thiffeault said the county’s computer systems were back to normal.
City officials said many apps in the county were unaffected, including those used by Lambton Public Health and the county’s three long-term care homes.
Lambton’s public health COVID-19 vaccination reservation system has not been affected and remains available at getthevaccine.ca, the county said.
The municipalities of Lambton in Plympton-Wyoming and Warwick Township also use the county’s servers and have also been affected.
The county apologized in the press release for any inconvenience the incident caused to county residents.
We take this matter seriously and are committed to continuing to protect the privacy of all residents, the county said in its statement.
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Residents having difficulty reaching its services should call its general reception line at 519-845-0801, officials said.
We have taken all reasonable steps necessary to protect our network from this, said Thiffeault. The one piece that is always a challenge is to stay on top. We have always been committed to ensuring compliance with best practices.
Lambton County is not the only municipality in southwestern Ontario to have been the victim of a cybersecurity incident in recent years. In April 2019, the city of Stratford paid more than $ 75,000 in bitcoins to a hacker after a cyber attack crippled its computer systems. Later that year, the nearby town of Woodstock was the target of a cyberattack that cost the town approximately $ 660,000, despite the decision not to pay the hackers behind the ransomware.
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